Columnist Susan Snyder: Fighting for the ‘transit dependent’

Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2000 | 11:02 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Tuesdays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@vegas.com or 259-4082.

There are reasons people don't like listening to Robert Kachur.

He sounds like a nut, which makes it harder to admit that his ideas make some sense.

Kachur admits he has some obscure theories regarding public transit. First, he thinks it will never succeed because automobile lobbyists won't let it. Secondly, he thinks bus service would be better if wealthy people rode them as a rule, rather than an exception.

And Kachur is a bulldog when it comes to defending the rights of the "transit dependent." Public officials can't simply avoid him. He'll call, send e-mail, write letters and wait in office lobbies until they hear him out.

He spent most of last fall badgering Clark County transit officials, Metro Police and the FBI about a game of three-card monte he saw on a Maryland Parkway bus.

It's a game in which a person bets he can find one of three cards after the dealer has turned them face-down and shuffled them around. Kachur says he saw one rider become quite agitated after losing $1,000.

Still, imagine the reaction Kachur received when he complained to public officials that people were gambling on a bus in Las Vegas -- a town where people play supermarket slots while their Tater Tots thaw in the cart.

He says police told him gambling on the bus is legal, but county transit officials said they'd try to make sure it didn't happen again.

Kachur will be there if it does. He says he ditched his car and bought a bus pass five years ago in California. He still doesn't own a car.

"When I first started riding a driver said, 'It's made so you'll never give up your car.' I thought he was crazy," Kachur said.

But he says in a few months he figured out what the guy meant. If the bus comes only once an hour, wait. If there's no bench, stand. If you don't have the correct change, tough.

Transit officials likely would disagree, but Kachur says society generally treats bus riders as second-class citizens who don't drive because there's something wrong with them.

"Being transit-dependent is degrading," he said. "So few people of influence ride the bus."

He figures if wealthy people rode, the buses would go to more places. Signs posted inside the coaches might warn riders of pickpockets and scam artists.

Shelters might have electronic postings telling riders how much longer it would be until a certain bus arrived. Riders could take a few minutes to grab a cup of coffee instead of standing around for half an hour.

Kachur snickers at the prospect of a high-speed train connecting Las Vegas and Southern California. It's a great idea, but he figures it's just another mode of transportation for the vast majority of people to ignore.

"That's government subsidy. It's 'Let's get the money because they're giving it away,' " Kachur said. "But if you're the senator, are you going to ride the train? No. You're going to fly."

Kachur says transit authorities should give marketing and customer service duties to private companies that build reputations and bottom lines on good service.

It would cost more to ride, but at least people would get something better for their money, he says.

That's the kind of logic that rankles bureaucrats, Kachur says. It's so crazy it might work.

And he says he's still bugging the FBI about that three-card monte game.